The creativity at Palladium is unstoppable

[Kevin]

The creativity at Palladium is unstoppable

Today was sort of a strange day, but exhilarating.

I ran a few errands, did a little work on Rifts® Lemuria and held one creative meeting after another. I hadn’t planned it that way, but that’s how the day unfolded.

First, I had a wonderful creative conference with Carl Gleba on the telephone. It had been a while since we talked. I need to change that, because Carl ALWAYS inspires me. I long for the day I can hire him full time and keep him all to Palladium.

I was thrilled to learn he had finished a project we had talked about several months go. The first in a series of books I had been planning to launch. Carl is the only person I’ve shared the idea with outside of Palladium Books. A series of 96 page sourcebooks in a line called Secrets of (“X”). Carl liked the idea so much he’s written what will be the first “Secrets” book tentatively entitled Secrets of Atlantis or Secrets of True Atlanteans (we have not decided on the final title). It sounds fantastic and I can hardly wait to see the manuscript. Carl wants to take a final pass at it before he sends it in, but I should get the manuscript in a month or so. It should be followed by my own, Secrets of the Rifts® and a number of other “Secrets” books. All slated for later in the year and beyond. That’s all I’m going to say about them at this time.

Carl and I discussed a couple other projects I can’t talk about yet, and he got my mind going on a number of fronts. Man, I love his mind.

Second, I had to hang up with Carl when Ben Rodriguez arrived knocking on the door. Ben is the inker on the Rifts® comic book, RIFTS® The Adventures of Erin Tarn as a Girl. I reviewed the pages he had inked and we discussed a number of aspects about the comic, the inking and the artist Noah Page (who I NEED to call sometime soon!). The pages are looking awesome. Noah did a wonderful job breathing life into Jeff Lilly’s excellent script, and Ben’s doing a great job inking and embellishing. Now, we need to find a colorist and decide on exactly how we want to present the comic. Do we approach an established publisher with it like IDW, Dark Horse or Image? Or should we do it as a web comic? Do we publish it ourselves? We have been leaning toward getting an established company to publish the book, but we have not decided yet. We are fooling around with other comic book titles based on Palladium IPs as well.

Third meeting. Ben and I were still talking when Carmen Bellaire and Will Johnson arrived around 1:30 PM. Carmen and Will came to demo me a game they had developed and plan to self-publish, but now Carmen has ideas for ways Palladium could possibly utilize it. I was impressed and gave him the green light to develop it for us. I can’t reveal anymore at this time. It was nice seeing "Big Will" again.

Fourth meeting. Kathy Simmons came over so we could grab lunch and run a couple errands. Carmen and Will left and Kathy and I ran out two steps after. I told her about the events of the day and she thought they all sounded wonderful.

Fifth meeting. When I got back I called freelance writer and all around good guy, Paul Lell. Paul had developed a project on spec that he and I had been talking about for the last five months. Regrettably, after a closer look at it, we both came to the independent realization that it couldn’t work and decided to walk from it. However, I was pleased to learn that Paul is planning to submit a short series of material to The Rifter®.

Afterward, I talked to Alex a bit and sat down to write this Murmur. After I post it, I’m tempted to call Noah Page. I met with Mark Dudley yesterday and have had several conversations with my licensing agent the past week, as well as Apollo Okamura. I need to speak with Chuck Walton about a couple of different projects and Mike Mumah too.

Meanwhile, Apollo Okamura has been talking with me and working toward a secret pet project of his own. I’ll be getting back to him about it next week.

The creativity behind the scenes is nothing short of amazing, with one epic idea after another. All books and projects I know Palladium fans would love. I have never seen anything like it before. I’m blow away by these guys and working on some ways to finance some of them right now. It’s hard to stay focused on getting books out some days, but that’s priority number one. I think we're going to blow you away with one amazing release after another.

I need to get back to Rifts Lemuria. You guys and gals enjoy your weekend and please keep the purchases of The Rifter®, The Rifter® subscription, art prints, miniatures, books and stuff coming. Thanks. Game on!

Sincerely,
Kevin Siembieda
Publisher, Writer, Game Designer and Optimist

© Copyright February 4, 2012 Palladium Books Inc. All rights reserved.

Rifts®, The Rifter®, RECON®, Splicers®, Palladium Books®, Phase World®, The Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game®, Megaverse®, Nightbane®, The Mechanoids®, The Mechanoid Invasion®, Coalition Wars® and After the Bomb® are Registered Trademarks of Palladium Books Inc. Heroes Unlimited™, Beyond the Supernatural, Dead Reign, Warpath, Shemarrian Nation, and other published book titles, names, slogans and likenesses are trademarks of Palladium Books Inc., and Kevin Siembieda.

Robotech® and Robotech® The Shadow Chronicles® are Registered Trademarks of Harmony Gold USA, Inc.